Then his arms went limp, flopping down like that part of him had died.
“I’m sorry,” Caitlin said in her ear.
As Michelle guided Caitlin up the path, she glanced back over her shoulder at the homeless man. He stood there, shuffling back and forth from one foot to the other, muttering to himself, his arms flapping feebly against his thighs.
“I feel so stupid.” There was a tremor in Caitlin’s hand as she picked up her wine glass.
“Don’t. That was pretty disturbing.”
They sat in the hotel lobby now, on one of the overstuffed couches. Anything Michelle had wanted to say about how as a part of a new beginning maybe Caitlin shouldn’t drink so much, she set aside for another time.
Hell, she wanted a glass of wine at this point.
For all that she’d read about what had happened to Caitlin, that she’d been raped, that her husband had been murdered, that her child had died…
Rape. What woman didn’t think about that? Fear it? Calculate the odds of it? Sometimes say “yes” because it felt less risky to say than to say no?
The violent death of someone you loved… of your child…
Of course, she understood those things. She knew what they meant. But she’d kept those thoughts abstract. At a distance.
Seeing Caitlin’s reaction just now…
She hadn’t really gotten it before.
“No, you were right,” Caitlin said with a sigh. “He was a crazy guy. He wasn’t going to do anything. I just… I just get nervous sometimes.”
“I think we should do some yoga tomorrow morning, it’s a great way to get more centered.”
Michelle could hear the frantic edge in her own voice. She hoped that Caitlin couldn’t.
She had to stay calm. Had to keep it together. She couldn’t afford to think about what had happened to Caitlin.
Couldn’t afford to think about the things that had happened in Mexico.
She couldn’t let herself feel those feelings, not now. There was too much at stake for her to lose it, too much at stake for her and for Danny.
For Caitlin.
If I tell her what’s going on, Michelle thought, would that help? Could Caitlin handle it? Would she believe it?
How could I even begin to explain? she thought.
And if Gary found out…
Michelle smiled. Sipped her wine. “Maybe we should schedule a massage after yoga. It might help you relax a little.”
Chapter Fourteen
You couldn’t call Century City a neighborhood. It was a business district, built on the former 20th Century Fox Studio’s backlot, which the company had to sell when Cleopatra bombed at the box office. There were very few reasons to go to Century City if you didn’t work there. Lunch at the Fox Lot, a screening at CAA, dinner at Craft, maybe, but there were nicer parts of town to eat expensive meals. There was the Century City Mall, but it was just a mall like any other mall, and Michelle had generally gone to Santa Monica when she needed to pick up a couple of T-shirts from J. Crew or a mascara from Sephora.
The Century Plaza was a hotel that Michelle associated with presidential visits, foreign affairs lectures, conventions and fundraisers. Not a place where anyone she knew from out of town actually stayed.
If you had a meeting on the Fox Lot or CAA, maybe.
Or if you were a part of Safer America’s fundraiser, like board member Matthew Moss.
She’d been right about him being a talking head, a cultural commentator. He hadn’t been that well-known, back when she used to pay more attention to such things. And he wasn’t anyone you could call “famous” now. He didn’t have his own cable show, or anything like that. But she’d done a little Googling and found that he was a regular guest on those cable shows and a columnist who’d gotten his start on a popular blog.
“Hello,” he said now. “Michelle, isn’t it?”
She nodded. “Nice to see you again.” Which was a lie. He stood too close, a bulky man who radiated heat in an expensive suit. Sweat glistened at his forehead. Up this close, his hair looked even more like a plastic fiber helmet.
“You look very sharp tonight,” he said, slowly sweeping his gaze up and down.
She told herself to smile. It wasn’t like she’d dressed to attract any attention. She was wearing her black Armani suit, because it was LA, and when in doubt, wear black, and she was barely showing any cleavage.
“Why, thanks! So do you.”
He snorted. “My wife dresses me. I’m pretty sure I’d be helpless without her.”
She took a step back. The banquet room was crowded, but not so crowded that he needed to stand this close.
“Oh,” Michelle said. “Well, she does a great job. Is she here tonight?”
“No. She’s more the stay-at-home type.” He continued to stare at her, with a fixed smile. As plastic as his hair. “Speaking of, how’s our little leader?”
“You mean Caitlin? She’s great. We’ve had a really nice day.”
This was not entirely a lie. She’d arranged a private yoga session for Caitlin in the morning, not too early, then a “healing organic red-flower therapeutic massage followed by a smoothing sea-salt exfoliation and hydrating sea-algae masque.”
Caitlin seemed to like it.
“I’m so relaxed,” she’d said to Michelle over a sushi lunch on Ocean Boulevard. She’d actually eaten something for a change, and only had one glass of chardonnay.
And she’d reached out across the sushi bar, and grasped Michelle’s hand. “Thank you,” she’d said. “Thanks for, I don’t know… giving me a little push.”
Thinking about it now, Michelle felt a sick, acid churn in her stomach.
Caitlin had latched onto her hand, and Michelle feared she was leading her someplace very, very bad.
“Good to hear,” Moss said. “She’s one brave little lady.”
Michelle found the brave little lady over at the bar.
“Oh, hi,” Caitlin said. “What do you want to drink?”
Michelle very much wanted something to drink. But that wasn’t a good idea. Not right now. “Just a Pellegrino,” she said.
Caitlin did her little wave, with more emphasis than usual. “Come on, I’m not gonna judge. There’s not that much for you to do, anyway. Just shadow me when we’re mingling and take down any names of people I talk to. Not that I really wanna talk to any of them.” She laughed. “I just wanna do my talking-dog act and get the hell out of here.” She took a slug of her wine and laughed again, more loudly this time. “You know that joke about the talking dog? It doesn’t have to talk well. It’s just that it talks at all.”
Had she already had more than one drink? A pill? Something? She’d seemed okay when they’d ridden over to Century City from Santa Monica, if somewhat quiet and distant, wearing one of her beautiful white and beige outfits that threatened to blend her into the furniture. Pre-event jitters, Michelle had assumed.
They’d arrived at the Century Plaza some fifteen minutes after the event had officially begun, in the Constellation Room on the Plaza level. “I need to go check in with the event coordinator,” Michelle had told Caitlin. “Are you going to be okay, is there anything I can get you?”
The little wave, weak this time. “No, I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.”
She’d gone, found the coordinator, a stringy, slightly frantic woman named Cyndee, who Michelle was pretty sure had been in one of her Pilates classes a few years ago, but she wasn’t about to bring that up.
“Okay,” Cyndee had said, “So, here’s the schedule, we do cocktails and mingling till seven, then salad, we’ll have the introduction from Perry Aisles, Matthew Moss for the main course, and Caitlin O’Connor for dessert. Then Perry comes up and closes the deal.”
“Sounds good.”
Cyndee’s oversized eyes darted around the room. “Everything looks great, don’t you think? Fantastic turnout.”